Witness Progress 09

Remember that animation I was making and I said I wouldn't get distracted from it? I got distracted from it. I had a job interview, made that gif for my website, and then was inspired to make an animatic which I can't show now, but I'm quite proud of. Anyway, I'm back working on this. I have a little more than half the scenes animated (though I've saved the most complicated for last).

New Website Header

I took a break from my personal project to make a new header for my main website, and wanted to share my process work with you.

First I thought of an idea. Then I realized the idea was WAY too long and complicated, so I came up with a different idea, and I made a series of thumbnails to visualize and plan the actions I wanted:

And then I made a rough layout of how big everything would be with the final 1050x350 size that the website allows.

Then using the layout, I modeled the letters in Maya, and imported my Lou the Janitor Character. I also almost went with a black letter on white background, but it didn't look the way I wanted it to when I lit it. The background was constantly getting over-exposed, while the character looked dull. I like the way the character pops against the black background.

And finally, I animated it, lit it, rendered it, added a subtitle in After Effects, and made it into a gif.

Witness Progress 08

Well... sometimes things don't go as planned. Lots of complications since last update. A power outage left me unable to do a lot, and then the usual shaking off the dust of not having animated for a few months means I overestimated my abilities. I did not get the full layout pass that I wanted. Instead I ended up animating a few minor scenes, trying to get back into the groove of animating.

Here's one of the scenes I did. Again, I'm shaking off the dust. It's been a month or two since I've animated, and a few more months since I animated human characters.

Anyway, by next update I hope to have gotten a few more scenes blocked out. I'm hoping for like, at least one scene a day, maybe two. Really solid blocking, and maybe some full-on, first-pass animation if it's a short scene like this.

Witness Progress 07

Today's update is a little different. It was basically a lot of setup without anything to really show off, so I'm including an "audience reaction" GIF to predict your reaction. So without further ado, here's what I got done:

I re-recorded the dialogue, and mixed it with a new copyright-free, royalty-free, free song. Then I adjusted the timing of the animatic to be funnier, added the important sound effects, and exported each scene's audio.

How does the audience feel about that?

Then I imported the audio and referenced the characters and background into maya files for each scene, and in each of those file I set the camera into roughly the area it needed to be (like a really really rough layout). Then I recorded reference videos of myself performing the short, so I could get a feel for the acting.

How's the audience doing?

And finally, I organized everything into folders. Each scene has its place for the maya files, audio files, and render files. All the reference files are organized.

Audience?

Yeah, so today was a kind of boring update. Just a lot of organization, adjusting minor things, and setting things up. Not sure what future updates will be like, because I don't want to spoil anything, but from here on, it's just going to be animation. I'll probably just show screenshots, and maybe GIFs of scenes I'm proud of.

By the next update I plan to get an actual layout pass done, with significant poses, and final camera angles.

Golfing Astronaut

A silly character I sketched a while ago. I'd like to model him in 3D some day, and then I also have an idea for an animation with him. But for now it's just the sketch, and that drawing in my portfolio.

Witness Progress 06

Got Frankie all rigged. I think for the final animation I'm going to have his hands in IK instead of FK so they don't move around as much, but this was just a rig test.

By the next update I plan to have organized all my folders, broken down the animatic into shots, gotten the audio ready for the lipsync, and fixed the minor rig issues I noticed.

Witness Progress 05

This weekend I modeled the final character, Frankie. He still needs UVs, and some minor work done, but he's just about done.

By the next update I hope to have him all rigged up and then I'll be ready to animate.